As a Catholic I'm a big supporter of Distributism and Catholic Social Teaching in general, but I never really knew how it could be updated for a 21st Century Society. Thanks for this informative article.
thanks. interviewed a guest about Georgism ( https://starktruthradio.com/?p=9829 ) Georgists have some very interesting ideas but how do you address the potential of eroding property rights?
One correction, Tucker Carlson is not a populist, neither in practice, nor by his own admission ("I'm not a populist. I'm an elitist. I just believe in impressive elites.").
His proposition to ban/limit AI would be instituted from the top-down, and no decision-making power would have to be shifted to the populace in order to achieve it.
If AI is banned/regulated then I agree with Robert it will probably have to be enforced at the hardware level. This is a lot more feasible than people think, though, given that there's maybe a half-dozen facilities on the planet capable of manufacturing the high-end hardware needed for ML/AI applications. It wouldn't be difficult, in principle, to go talk to the management.
The problem is that AI accelerationism is one of the few remaining avenues for Line Go Up GDP growth. But I think hardcore regulation will have to happen eventually, if for no other reason than we'll eventually hit some kind of Black Mirror-esque "can we legally own artificial people?" scenario.
Crypto is definitely going to get folded into conventional currency and banking systems, given there's no way the Fed is going to tolerate money-laundering operations using the anonymous variants of cryptocurrencies, and the non-anonymous variants can't evade the surveillance state. ...unless the government completely collapses first.
I'm glad you wrote this. I think it will open up some people's eyes to the Distributist Option that might not have been aware of its existence.
You're correct that, at its core, the Distributist Option is about *ownership*. But, and this is crucial, it's also about *the common wealth of the community*.
But you cannot have a 'common wealth' of a 'community' is you maintain the 'free movement of goods, people and money' (liberalism).
Knowing these things, one viable solution to the 'AI' problem is simply barriers to entry/access to communities established by those communities.
The idea of 'open source' AI is also a way of addressing the 'rents' factor that results from technological consolidation.
Communities (not 'persons') should be free to reject or embrace or *dismantle* and return-to-sender any technology they choose. They should also have the right to remove 'property rights' from the owner of any technology they deem important for the 'common wealth'.
Technocrats in general need to be given a harder time of it.
If some communities want to be 'technological incubation centers' let them do so. But many communities may not and their choices need to be honored.
In general, I think people are not looking for an 'all or nothing' posture toward technology.
What they *are* looking for more control over the decisions being made about how they live.
And as long as liberalism's 'free movement of goods, persons and money' remains the political-economic paradigm, that's not going to happen.
Communities need 'walls' to prevent 'free movement' into their territories. I think, then, we'll see that they will build 'gates' to allow in what they feel needs to be allowed in.
The political movement that can offer the most people the most control over their lives - a genuinely liberty-loving illiberal political movement - is the one that is most likely to win hearts and minds.
As for crypto, precious-metals currency and 'local' banking, 'money' is one of the technologies who 'ownership' also needs to be distributed.
Well written. The USA pursued distributism for its whole existence until the late 1970s* and didn't wholly abandon it until circa year 2000, it had capital flow inhibitors between states until they were mostly and de facto undone between the late 1970s and mid 80s ( they were fully and de jure undone in the 1990s) and we had variability in regulation between states and in some era even to a lesser extent at the local level, this prevented the industrial and financial concentrations we have to day, the hub-and-spokes and all the rest of it. Just doing some re-decentralization would accomplish a whole lot of distributism
As a Catholic I'm a big supporter of Distributism and Catholic Social Teaching in general, but I never really knew how it could be updated for a 21st Century Society. Thanks for this informative article.
Really interesting article.
I've written a similar article on a similar ideology; Georgism.
https://anglofuturistmag.substack.com/p/how-georgism-can-bridge-economic
Would like to know your thoughts on it.
thanks. interviewed a guest about Georgism ( https://starktruthradio.com/?p=9829 ) Georgists have some very interesting ideas but how do you address the potential of eroding property rights?
One correction, Tucker Carlson is not a populist, neither in practice, nor by his own admission ("I'm not a populist. I'm an elitist. I just believe in impressive elites.").
His proposition to ban/limit AI would be instituted from the top-down, and no decision-making power would have to be shifted to the populace in order to achieve it.
If AI is banned/regulated then I agree with Robert it will probably have to be enforced at the hardware level. This is a lot more feasible than people think, though, given that there's maybe a half-dozen facilities on the planet capable of manufacturing the high-end hardware needed for ML/AI applications. It wouldn't be difficult, in principle, to go talk to the management.
The problem is that AI accelerationism is one of the few remaining avenues for Line Go Up GDP growth. But I think hardcore regulation will have to happen eventually, if for no other reason than we'll eventually hit some kind of Black Mirror-esque "can we legally own artificial people?" scenario.
Crypto is definitely going to get folded into conventional currency and banking systems, given there's no way the Fed is going to tolerate money-laundering operations using the anonymous variants of cryptocurrencies, and the non-anonymous variants can't evade the surveillance state. ...unless the government completely collapses first.
If you think Emilia Romagna is a distributist country and not a leftist cleptocracy, you are derangedly misinformed...
I'm glad you wrote this. I think it will open up some people's eyes to the Distributist Option that might not have been aware of its existence.
You're correct that, at its core, the Distributist Option is about *ownership*. But, and this is crucial, it's also about *the common wealth of the community*.
But you cannot have a 'common wealth' of a 'community' is you maintain the 'free movement of goods, people and money' (liberalism).
Knowing these things, one viable solution to the 'AI' problem is simply barriers to entry/access to communities established by those communities.
The idea of 'open source' AI is also a way of addressing the 'rents' factor that results from technological consolidation.
Communities (not 'persons') should be free to reject or embrace or *dismantle* and return-to-sender any technology they choose. They should also have the right to remove 'property rights' from the owner of any technology they deem important for the 'common wealth'.
Technocrats in general need to be given a harder time of it.
If some communities want to be 'technological incubation centers' let them do so. But many communities may not and their choices need to be honored.
In general, I think people are not looking for an 'all or nothing' posture toward technology.
What they *are* looking for more control over the decisions being made about how they live.
And as long as liberalism's 'free movement of goods, persons and money' remains the political-economic paradigm, that's not going to happen.
Communities need 'walls' to prevent 'free movement' into their territories. I think, then, we'll see that they will build 'gates' to allow in what they feel needs to be allowed in.
The political movement that can offer the most people the most control over their lives - a genuinely liberty-loving illiberal political movement - is the one that is most likely to win hearts and minds.
As for crypto, precious-metals currency and 'local' banking, 'money' is one of the technologies who 'ownership' also needs to be distributed.
Well written. The USA pursued distributism for its whole existence until the late 1970s* and didn't wholly abandon it until circa year 2000, it had capital flow inhibitors between states until they were mostly and de facto undone between the late 1970s and mid 80s ( they were fully and de jure undone in the 1990s) and we had variability in regulation between states and in some era even to a lesser extent at the local level, this prevented the industrial and financial concentrations we have to day, the hub-and-spokes and all the rest of it. Just doing some re-decentralization would accomplish a whole lot of distributism